


More lying than saving

by Ghostlyleia



Category: Fury (2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 03:44:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14946956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostlyleia/pseuds/Ghostlyleia
Summary: Norman wants to know why Grady’s always such an asshole





	More lying than saving

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first little drabble, so please be nice!

“Why’s he such an asshole anyways?” Norman asked from his seat beside the fire,  
“War changes people,” Bible replied, in that gentle, knowing way he had, “we’ve all done things we can’t escape from, him more than most.”  
“What do you mean?”  
Boyd shifted in his seat to face him, crushing his cigarette into the mud.  
“Well don’t you go blabbing now, but before he came out here his girl died, he got talking about it once in Africa, though he was too drunk to understand most of what came out, couldn’t make out if the japs got her or what. Never spoke on it sin-.” Before the last syllable was out he’d straightened up and was fiddling with his cigarette packet. Norman knew then, from the tension alone that Grady was behind him, he expected a sharp clout ‘round the head and when none came he turned.  
“Walk with me.” It wasn’t an invitation. He expected to feel the barrel of his pistol against his throat, at the very least a sharp reminder of what happens when you stick your nose in, but not what followed. 

“We’d moved out west, by the sea and everything about it reminded me of her. She was a nurse at the base and said it was what she’d been put on Earth to do. Weighed on her though. Lying in bed one night when she told me that her job was more about lying than saving, telling the same lies day in day out.  
‘You’ll be okay,’  
‘It’s just a scratch,’  
‘Doctors coming, he’ll fix you up,’  
Anything she could think of babbling at them as they bled out underneath her.”  
Norman didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t, just listened to the shells exploding off into the distance while Grady lit a cigarette. 

“She’d been working at the base, I’d just arrived to pick her up when the bombs started falling. Started running but she stopped, I could see her through the smoke but I couldn’t understand why, nothing had dropped near her or nothing but I kept running anyways. She had a four foot metal rod through her, blast had sent it flying and it had lodged itself right under her sternum.”  
His voice caught and Norman found it hard to imagine Grady loving someone, rough as he was, and for the first time he saw him as almost human.  
“Her eyes met mine and just like that I told the same lies she did, fell straight out of me. She just ran her thumb over my mouth same way she always did when I talked too much and asked how far down it was. I didn’t know what she meant until she looked at my gun and back at me, and I never thought I’d be glad that the rod went straight through a lung but I was, because that look told me I was not to let her die over days like the gut shot soldiers she’d seen. Then the blood started coming out her mouth, slowly at first, but by the minute she was choking on it, wheezing and rattling, gripping my arm tighter each time. And I started lying again.”  
“I don’t know what to say Grady, I’m sorry,” he shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, as if he could find somewhere to bury his guilt.  
“Norman I’m sorry, you know? I think... I think you’re a good man. That’s what I think. I think maybe we ain’t, but I think you are. So I just wanted to tell you that.”


End file.
